The Game
by castlenova
Summary: Tony takes Pepper to task over something she does that bugs him, with interesting repercussions... T for safety. Possibly could be continued. (Also - working title, I couldn't think of anything better)


_I've been toying with the idea of posting up some of my Iron Man fanfics and eventually decided to bite the bullet and go for it._ _Any feedback welcome!_

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"It makes me uncomfortable."

"Oh please!"

"It does!" he grumbled loudly and petulantly, much like the spoiled child which, she supposed, he was once upon a time.

"Mr. Stark..."

"No, you see, it just sounds so wrong. How long have we worked together Pepper?"

She stood up from the chair she was sitting in, an indicator that she wanted no further part in the conversation. He stood as well.

"Tony..."

"Much better."

She sighed before continuing.

"I've always called you Mr. Stark. It's more professional for a start..."

He waved his hands around in a directionless manner.

"Screw professionalism. Just call me Tony. Please. I'm a changed man after all."

She raised an eyebrow at that, replying that he hadn't changed that much even she knew that was a lie. He _was_ different – his actions on returning from Afghanistan were impulsive and definitely shocking but they were based on the truth he had learned during his captivity, something which had brought a new essence of humility and humanity to him. She hadn't spent too long in his company since his return but she had known from the short time she'd had with him that this was indeed a new Tony Stark. Or at least a new side to him.

A side that she couldn't help but be entranced by. She sighed again and he spoke again, softer this time.

"I'll tell you what. Every time you call me Mr. Stark, I'm gonna do something that makes you uncomfortable. As retaliation for my discomfort."

She scoffed at that.

"Please. I've worked with you for ten years. I don't think there's any level of discomfort that I haven't experienced at some point."

He raised an eyebrow at that, grinned and stood up, stalking his way around the desk towards her.

"I was hoping you were gonna say that..." he said, stepping towards her and noticing the slight swallow in her throat. His grin widened as his hips collided with hers, pushing her back against the desk which he then placed his hands on, effectively trapping her.

"...Challenge accepted," he quipped smugly and she raised an eyebrow at him.

"You know this would definitely qualify as sexual harassment," she said in a professional tone, while desperately trying to quieten the voice in her head that was screaming at her to kiss him. He edged even closer to her and she closed her eyes as she felt the bulge in his trousers.

"So sue me," he whispered dramatically.

When she laughed he took the opportunity to catch her mouth in a kiss, just the briefest of connections, a tester almost. When he pulled back he could see the redness on her cheeks. He stepped back.

"Every time you call me Mr. Stark, I'm gonna do something that makes you uncomfortable." His mind added in _'until we get to a point when you're no longer uncomfortable with it'._

The silence between them was loaded, charged and pronounced. Pepper was perhaps better positioned than he to know that this couldn't last more than a few days. She couldn't let it because if she did it would drive her insane.

"Will that be all Mist...Tony?"

He smirked at her correction.

"Yes, thank you Pepper."

She thought about hitting him with a counter-wager in relation to using her own professional title but she figured there was nothing she could do that would make him uncomfortable. He stepped away from her somewhat reluctantly and she quickly made her way out and back to the safety of her own office.

Tony chuckled to himself. The next few days were gonna be fun.

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Pepper used any excuse she could to avoid him for the rest of the day. She could still taste his lips on hers even though it was the briefest of touches. She could still feel the sensation and the jolt in her stomach.

She knew damn well that she was going to slip up somewhere. It wasn't in her nature to act casually while she was working. What worried her was if she needed to speak to him when he was with other people – if she called him Tony, their eyebrows were going to raise instantly given the sudden change of terms and if she called him Mr. Stark, God only knew what he'd do then.

She sighed, felt her shoulders tensing and she reached behind her with one arm to knead the muscle in her right shoulder. Maybe it was time to pack up and go home. She was already among the last of the people here – she nearly always stayed late. He was still here, pottering about with something in his office. She could slip away undetected.

But then she never did that. She always checked in with him before she went home. Groaning, she stood and made her way towards his door, beating out three short knocks on the door and hearing his yell to 'come in'.

He was engrossed in something on the computer screen when she walked in. She paid no attention – in the old days she wouldn't have wanted to know what was on the screen and that fact hadn't changed.

"I am going to head home unless there's anything else that you need?"

He didn't look up from the computer screen, instead tilted his head sideways, pursed his lips and mouthed the word 'wow'. She raised her eyebrows and hands at the same time.

"Ok then, I'll see you tomorrow."

He finally spoke at that.

"I'll see you tomorrow, _what?"_

"What?" she replied, confused. He replied, saying the same statement in a more pointed way, making it clear to her that he could see she was trying not to use any name or term of endearment on him. She sighed.

"I'll see you tomorrow, _Tony."_ she said in a very pronounced manner. He grinned and finally looked up from the screen.

"See, it's not so difficult, is it?"

She shook her head, uttered her good night and left for the evening. Tony went back to the computer screen, on which he had a diagram of an arc reactor with notes spewing out from every angle of it. He took a deep breath and stored the files on his own private server before grabbing his keys.

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The following morning came around the same as any other. Pepper Potts followed her usual routine and arrived in the office a good 45 minutes before anyone else would dare to set foot in the place. The lab technicians were more than likely wandering around in the other building but they tended to work peculiar hours anyway. The rest of the admin staff were 9 to 5 people. They shut down like Tony's robots outside of those hours.

She was sorting through the day's schedule and drinking her coffee when Tony strode in, freshly suited and looking sharp. They had a board meeting today but she had been full sure that she'd have had to call JARVIS to remind him later in the day.

Before she had the chance to engage her brain, she uttered the words "Good morning Mr. Stark." He stopped dead at his office door, swung back on his heels, smirking at her. He looked at her curiously as she went red after realising what she'd said.

He was about to walk over to her when Pam, one of the other admin workers arrived in, greeting them both. He returned the pleasantry before asking Pepper to bring his schedule into his office in a few minutes. With that, and a devilish smirk, he unlocked his office and disappeared inside. Pepper rolled her eyes to heaven – stupid, stupid, stupid. She printed out his schedule which, at least, was pretty packed and meant minimal contact with her and thus, minimal chance of her putting her foot in it again.

She grabbed the page and stood up, offering a few words of advice and observation to Pam who had been lamenting the fact that the guy she'd been seeing seemed to be backing off gradually. Pepper couldn't understand why. She liked Pam. They often chatted over morning coffee. Pepper always got the feeling that Pam could see straight through her blasé attitude towards dating and romance, she always got the feeling that Pam knew damn well why Pepper hadn't had a serious relationship for a the last five years.

She knocked on Tony's door and walked in, closing it behind her. He was standing and looking out the window behind his desk, eyes fixed on some distant, unseen point. She thought maybe he might forget about her slip-up outside and if not, she needed to set down some boundaries with him for when they were in a professional setting.

"Your schedule is pretty packed for today. First meeting at ten, that's probably going to drag on because you've got Finch and Brown on your back..."

He mumbled something incoherent under his breath, without turning around but the most she could make out was the repetition of the phrase 'on your back'. She thought she could figure the rest of it out. She didn't know what to say to that so she continued rattling through the schedule after taking a seat in front of his desk.

As she finished, he turned around and strolled over to her, a mischievous look on his face.

"You forgot about our little agreement yesterday, didn't you?"

She nodded.

"You caught me too early in the morning, I hadn't had my coffee."

He swallowed. There were so many answers he could give to that but he refrained from doing so. There was a certain element of a long game to this one and he didn't want to screw it up by going too big too soon.

"We need some ground rules," she blurted out suddenly. He raised an eyebrow, moved to sit in the chair next to her, his hand hanging dangerously close to her thigh.

"Like what?"

"Like, when I call you Mr. Stark in front of board members or industry professionals it doesn't count because if I call you Tony they're all going to start wondering why and not focus on the reason they're actually here. Please Tony, I don't need that kind of scrutiny when I'm trying to do my job," she said softly and he nodded his head.

"Agreed. To all of that. Just one thing. You called me Mr. Stark again..."

Her eyes widened and she protested, saying that it was in use as a descriptor rather than in direct conversation but he was having none of it. As far as he was concerned, that name was not to be uttered outside of board rooms and company. And if the company was agreeable enough, not even then.

"You're impossible," she said suddenly and he smirked.

"I know. But I'm going to take it easy on you. Seeing as I caught you off guard this morning, I'm not going to do anything other than ask you a question. Sound fair?"

She frowned skeptically and replied "I don't know. I haven't heard the question yet." He chuckled at that before looking up at her again.

"When was the last time you went on a date? A proper, honest-to-goodness dinner-and-a-movie date with a goodnight kiss or...whatever, thrown in at the end." He stumbled partly over the 'whatever', not liking to think of anyone getting the privilege of loving her the way he wanted to. Her face was one of shock and he could understand that. The cogs in her head were wondering was he asking her out, was he trying to manipulate her or was he just curious?

In truth, it was a little of all three.

"Ummm..." she wracked her brains – when _was_ the last time she went on a date? And who with?

"If you have to think that hard, it's been too long," he replied quickly and she nodded in agreement.

"I don't know – maybe a year or more. But I can't for the life of me remember who it was with."

He nodded at that and shrugged before standing up, an unspoken order that he was finished with the meeting and ready to get back to whatever he was doing. He took the printed schedule from her and scanned it quickly. Nothing too taxing. Nothing a few quick reviews on his server wouldn't take care of. He nodded.

"That'll be all Pepper."

She nodded and stood up. She had just turned away when she felt his strong hands slide onto her hips. He heart skipped a beat and her whole body tensed up. Maybe this was why sex with someone you knew you shouldn't be with was so good – the build up of tension was so great that the release was even more powerful.

She jumped again when the whisper of his breath graced the skin of her neck.

"You forgot the second slip-up..." he murmured into her ear. She could hear him inhaling her scent and part of her felt like just giving in to his charm and pouncing on him. She argued that it hadn't been in direct conversation but he was having none of it.

She couldn't completely muffle the moan that she emitted when his lips closed on her earlobe, his tongue slipping out to taste her and she could almost feel his grin as he released her.

She bid her usual exit remarks and quickly sped back to her office. Tony watched the sashay of her hips out the door and wondered which of them would be the first to crack.

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The rest of the day passed without too much incident. Pepper referred to him by Mr. Stark in their meetings but the glint in his eye every time she did made her wonder if rather than giving free passes on these occasions he was simply logging and saving the moments up to torture her at a more suitable time.

 _'Would you really have a problem with it?_ ' the voice in her head said gleefully and she had to admit that she wouldn't. Her last two interactions with him had shot lightning through her to her core and she couldn't remember the last time she had felt so invigorated. She wondered absently if maybe, just maybe, it was time to play Tony at his own game. She had considered slipping away from the office without telling him this evening but she knew that he would worry that he had gone too far and back off indefinitely. She didn't want that. But she also didn't want to give in to him too quickly either. The way it was now, it was a case of which of them would be the first to crack.

Grabbing her jacket and keys, she shut down her computer and made her way into his office. He was, once again, engrossed in something on the computer and she, once again, bid him goodnight before turning for the door.

"Twelve," he said suddenly and though she knew what he was talking about, she still turned and pretended to be in the dark.

"What?"

"Twelve times you used that name today."

"All of them were in a professional setting," she replied sharply and he reminded her that two of them hadn't been. That sent a shudder of heat through her stomach. He swayed gently from side to side in his chair as he spoke.

"Five of them were needed. The other five were because you knew you had a pass," he said pointedly. She pursed her lips and shrugged.

"Maybe. Maybe I like seeing your discomfort as much as you enjoy mine."

On that, he stood up, paced around the desk and leaned on the front of it, a meter or two from her.

"If I recall, Ms. Potts, you didn't seem like you weren't enjoying it this morning. No? Just an observation."

She knew she had gone red both at his accusation and the memory of his lips around her ear lobe. This was torture, pure torture. She thought it would take a little bit longer for him to drive her crazy. But no, here she was in close proximity to her insanely hot boss, contemplating whether to just give in now and launch herself at him.

But no, she refused to let herself down so badly. So she straightened up and voiced her goodbye. As she reached the door he spoke again.

"I'm keeping score Pepper. That's five you owe me. By the way, you taste great." He flashed her a wicked grin and her breath caught again. She nodded and made a quick exit. Tony smirked to himself – it was only a matter of time.

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Pepper didn't sleep that night. The bed covers seemed constricting. She was too hot and every time she did close her eyes, he was there, with his cheeky grin and glinting dark eyes. She raised her hands to her eyes and cursed when she saw the clock reading 2 am.

She knew she needed to just clear her mind of everything, especially a certain billionaire charmer but execution of the plan was a harder challenge. One of her favorite books was 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' and she laughed when she considered the central premise of it. Although Tony obviously got older, his good looks did not wane and he was as handsome now as he was when she started working for him ten years ago. She knew she wanted him. Heck, she had done since she'd started working there but that was a different type of want. And it had only been a fleeting thing as her professionalism took over.

It was the rapport, the fights and confrontations over the years that had made them a stronger entity. It was all of that that had made them friends too. They had told each other not six months ago that they were all the other had. So why were they stumbling around each other, she wondered. Why didn't they just throw caution to the wind and see what would happen?

She knew the answer to that – they worked together, and all of those other sensible answers that she felt like throwing off the cliff at Tony's mansion.

Her eyes felt heavy. But she felt confident that she had made a decision that would, one way or another, end the torment she was currently going through. With that in mind, she was finally able to drift off to sleep.

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Tony wasn't sure he could remained disciplined any longer. It had been a day, a day and a fraction even, and where he thought he could tease and tease her until she cracked he was now finding that it was he who couldn't handle the increased sexual tension between them. The air had been so thick between them yesterday he wondered if they would suddenly start suffocating.

It was for that reason that he hadn't really slept the night before. He knew there was one thing that would have relaxed him enough to get a few more hours but it didn't seem right to him, even though he'd had no such misgivings in the past.

It was for that reason that he had been up at the crack of dawn, showered, fed and on the road to Stark Industries at least an hour earlier than his earliest usual. He'd get in and get some schematics drawn up for a new reactor. He'd immerse himself in work and by the time she came in, he'd be so tuned into that that he wouldn't care if she was calling him St. Peter.

It came as a big surprise to him then when, on entering the office area of the building, he found himself very much not alone in there. There was Pepper, sitting at her desk, furiously typing something and sipping from a very large coffee cup. He cleared his throat.

"Pepper," he said in a somewhat clipped, tired tone. He didn't notice the smirk on her face.

"Mr. Stark."

He stopped in front of her desk, moved as if to speak then seemed to think better of it and proceeded into his office without a word. At the last minute, he stuck his head out and asked her where she had got her coffee.

"I'll get you one – the usual?"

"Make it stronger. I didn't really sleep last night," he replied grimly, his head disappearing back into the office.

Sighing, Pepper stood up and drained the last of her own cup. "That makes two of us," she said to herself.

15 minutes later, she was pushing his office door open and carrying the closest thing to a bucket of coffee. He was sitting behind his desk, staring into space when she came in. His gaze seemed to slice through her as she placed the up down in front of him, breaking his trance and he nodded his thanks to her.

"Six," he said quickly and she nodded her head, knowing what he was referring to. He took a sip of his coffee, winced at its strength.

"The difference," he went on, "is that this time, it wasn't a slip. You did it on purpose, didn't you?"

"Tony, it's very early..."

He stood up and shook his hand, moving around the desk to stand in front of her. His hands, all of a sudden, seemed unsure and settled with placing them down on the desk behind him. He took a deep breath.

"Pepper, we need to talk. I'm going crazy. I can't, I can't do this."

She maintained eye contact with him as he spoke. She nodded her head in agreement before saying "Neither can I. It's too, I don't know. I couldn't sleep last night either..."

He nodded his head, his hands reaching out now to grasp her hands.

"I thought this game would be fun but I was wrong. I've done nothing but frustrate myself and made you dread coming in here which I never wanted to do. I just, I don't know, I thought...nothing. It doesn't matter. I'm sorry."

He looked at the ground, her hands still in his but loosely. He nodded to himself when he felt her hands slip out of his but was unprepared for the feeling of them sliding onto his shoulders and around his neck as she stepped in between his legs. He looked up at her, was taken aback by the desire in her eyes.

"The only reason I dreaded coming in here was because I was afraid that if I got started I wouldn't be able to stop."

He gulped, actually gulped and she giggled at that, a sound which drew a laugh from him.

"Tony, we don't need a game to figure out how we feel about each other. Do we?"

He straightened up his stance, and slid his hands onto her hips, saying he didn't think so. He pulled her closer to him and looked up at her. She leaned forward and kissed him soundly on the lips. He moaned at the contact and moved to deepen the kiss but she stopped him with a finger on his lips.

"Not here Romeo. I still want to maintain some semblance of professionalism."

"Uh huh, yeah. We can work on that. Re-write the office protocols..." he said as his hands slid onto her ass and pulled her even closer to him. He latched his lips onto her neck and let his tongue roam along her skin.

"Oh God..." she moaned in a moment of weakness, causing him to chuckle.

"It's Tony actually but lots of people make that mistake..."

That suddenly brought her back to reality and she took a step back from him, causing him to look at her in surprise.

"Lots of people do not make that mistake anymore," she said pointedly and he realised what she was getting at. He reached for her hands and pulled her back into him. He brought both hands up to his chest and then his lips, kissing them softly.

"Pep, honey. No one has made that mistake since before Afghanistan. You know that. You know that the drinking and the carousing and everything else that went with that has stopped..."

"Self-destructive behavior?"

"Yeah, all of that is done with."

She stared at him, incredulous.

"Tony, you put on armor and fly around the sky fighting things twice your size. If that isn't self-destructive I don't know what is..."

He looked at her, frowning.

"Yeah but it's totally different to what I was...What? Do you want me to quit?" he asked and she wondered briefly what his answer would be if she'd said yes. But she knew better than to put that on him now.

"No Tony, I just want you to realise that what you do is dangerous. And now you have someone who worries about that and would be absolutely inconsolable if anything happened to you. Actually, you always had that in me. But what I'm saying is...where before you felt like you wouldn't be leaving anyone behind, I'm telling you now that you would and I don't want to be the person Tony Stark leaves behind."

Their eyes met and his were misty. He loved this woman more than anything in the world. He didn't even know how he could reply to that in words so he chose the best way he knew. He pulled her close and smashed his lips to hers in a heated, passionate kiss that seemed to bask the world around them in white light. His tongue battle with hers, his hands roamed her body from her breasts to her backside and thighs, and he didn't even hear the phone ring behind him.

Finally she broke the kiss, reaching behind him for the phone while he fiddled with the top button of her blouse. She swiped his hand away with her free hand but he went back to the job in hand, leaning down to kiss the skin he had just revealed. He popped the next button much to what he knew was her objection and continued placing kisses along her skin.

"Tony!" she eventually said firmly and he looked up at her beautiful, flushed face.

"Yes Miss Potts?" he said mischievously. She smirked at that.

"As much as I hate to stop you in what you're doing..."

"Good, don't stop me then!" He said moving his head to her chest again and getting a firm tug on the back his head to bring him back up to eye level.

"...as much as I hate doing it, we are in work and I am not going to be the assistant who has sex with Tony Stark in his office."

He winced, "Technically, that title is taken..." She smacked him across the head with the stack of papers she held and he laughed before grabbing her hips again and whispering, "How about...the assistant Tony Stark made come...five times during office sex?" He smirked and nibbled on her ear lobe. She sighed. That DID sound good but there was no way she was going to entertain it.

"How about you save that little feat for tonight? My place – 8 o'clock."

With that she swept out of his grasp and headed for the door. He watched her in amusement before calling her back. She turned to him saying 'what?'

"You, uh, might, just might, want to button your shirt back up..."

He dodged the stack of papers that came flying at his head.

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